


hall of mirrors

by seek_its_opposite



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Early Season 4, F/M, Fluff, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:10:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23996548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seek_its_opposite/pseuds/seek_its_opposite
Summary: “Come on, Scully. Who doesn’t want to be Tom Sawyer at his own funeral?” (early season 4)
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 6
Kudos: 46





	hall of mirrors

Scully is honest-to-God pacing when Mulder gets to the office, two hot cups of coffee in his hands. Twenty minutes later her coffee is getting cold, and he put cinnamon in it and everything.

“Mulder,” Scully pouts, “I’d really rather you not be here for this.” She hunches over the desk, spinning a card from her Rolodex between two fingers. Her shoulder pads are almost at her ears.

He’s loving this.

“Come on, Scully. Who doesn’t want to be Tom Sawyer at his own funeral?”

She purses her lips when she smiles. “I never saw the appeal.”

“Liar.”

Mulder leans back into the chair across from her and tucks his foot against the front edge of the desk, staring at her over his knee. He waits.

Scully rubs her temple, sighs, and dials.

“Hey,” he says, like the idea just occurred to him, “why don’t you put J. Edgar Junior on speakerphone?”

She, dry as bone, replies, “Absolutely not.”

She opens the file in front of her and sits up straight, raising her chin.

“Special Agent Dana Scully calling for Supervisory Special Agent Marty Neil, please,” she begins. All business.

“No, he’s not expecting my call.”

A pause. Scully drums her nails on the open file.

“Marty, hi!” she exclaims. “It’s Dana Scully.”

The intensity of her charm, the suddenness of it, catches Mulder off guard. It’s like watching a cheetah pounce. He takes his foot off the desk.

“I know, it has been too long. I hear you’ve been doing well for yourself,” she fawns.

That gets Marty talking. Scully plays with the coils in the phone cord while he brags.

“That’s great, Marty,” she says at last. “Congratulations.”

She nods over the phone.

“Yeah, Spooky Mulder, can you believe it?”

She locks eyes with Mulder across the desk.

“Yeah, still.”

Mulder almost chokes to keep from laughing out loud. Scully, finally, cracks a full smile.

“Oh, you have no idea how insufferable he is.”

She shoots him a daring look.

“He doesn’t even need proof. Whenever I can’t _disprove_ that it’s little green men—”

“Grey,” Mulder whispers.

Scully puts her finger to her lips and continues, “His ego is so visible I can almost watch it grow.”

Mulder feigns being shot through the heart.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Scully says. She’s really enjoying herself now. “It’s good to know I’m so needed.”

The face she makes at Mulder reminds him, shamelessly, _You asked for this_.

“So listen, Marty.” Scully glances back down at the file, going in for the kill. “I hear you’re working the Volkov case in Jersey.”

With her nail she pries up a corner of the file’s label and smooths it back down again.

“That’s fascinating,” Scully vamps.

She looks up at Mulder and sticks out her tongue.

“No, no. But I was hoping you’d be able to help me settle a bet.”

She nods.

“Uh-huh. Mulder believes that all the victims at the carnival were previous abductees.”

This is not true, but he appreciates that she’s keeping his actual theory between them. The victims—three adults and four teenagers—were all found dead of radiation burns in a small-town carnival’s hall of mirrors. What the public doesn’t know is that one man, a Russian national, Ivan Volkov, walked out completely unharmed. Obviously Mulder suspects black oil.

“Right, but without access to all of their names, I have no way to prove him wrong,” she prods. “And I would really love to prove him wrong on this one. If you could get me the file, just between us, you would be doing me such a favor.”

A minute later, Scully looks up at the ceiling and clenches her fist.

“Oh, Marty, you’re a champ. It’s 202-555-0197.”

She scoots the chair closer to the phone.

“Of course,” she says. “I owe you one.”

She looks ready to wrap up the call, but J. Edgar Junior has something else to say. Scully closes her eyes.

“I’ll think about that,” she says tightly. “Have a good day, Marty.”

She hangs up and lets out a long breath.

“What did I say?” Mulder throws his arms open dramatically. “You got the file, didn’t you?”

“He’s faxing it over.”

“I knew you could do it.” His little spy, after all. He stands, spreads his palms out on the desk, and leans forward, closing in on her. “Can you see my ego growing?” he asks, voice low.

“Mulder, shut up.”

“Hey Scully, did you ever think you were gonna marry that guy? Not that I think you should have, but come on: power couple.”

She looks at her empty hands in her lap. And then Scully, surprising them both, starts to cry.

“Oh no,” Mulder softens. “It was a bad joke. I didn’t mean it.”

He fumbles for the Kleenex and shoves the whole box toward her.

“No, I’m okay.” She stands up and retreats to the back of the office, wiping her eyes. “I don’t know why I’m crying.”

Mulder pockets a tissue and trails after her. “What did he say?”

She turns to face him. “He offered to put in a good word for me in counterintelligence.”

“And?”

“That I deserve better than you,” Scully whispers.

“Scully,” Mulder says. He wraps his hands around her biceps, holding her firmly. “ _Scully_.”

“Don’t you dare say that I do,” she sniffs.

Mulder grins and brushes the hair from her cheek. “I adore you,” he says. The only words he has left.

Scully, small and split open, reaches out to trace a stripe on his tie. She taps his chest. “Next time I call out your ego I want to mean it,” she tells him, hushed.

He hands her the tissue. “We’ll do it differently next time.”


End file.
